Stork Fokker is boosting its presence in Romania by opening an engineering centre in Bucharest to carry out “detail design” engineering. Stork Fokker president Ad Louter says the facility currently has an engineering capability of 30,000 man hours a year, which is expected to grow to 50,000 a year by the end of 2006.
“There is a great demand for qualified aerospace engineers worldwide,” says Stork. “That also applies to Stork Aerospace, which is why it approached Romania, which has a long tradition in the aviation industry and respected educational programmes in this field.”
Romania is attractive to Stork because of its highly educated engineers, low cost base, flexibility in sourcing, a good infrastructure that is opening up to the West, and because all Stork’s customers consider Eastern European countries an interesting base, says Louter.
The company has signed an agreement with the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, the Delft University of Technology and the Netherlands National Aerospace Laboratory to set up an aviation technology knowledge centre with the support of the EVD (Netherlands Agency for International Business and Co-operation), “to bridge the knowledge infrastructures of the two countries”.
Also, Fokker Engineering Romania aligns with Stork Fokker’s strategy of strengthening its position in Romania to enable it to operate more flexibly and competitively. It already has a joint venture – FOAR – in Bacau with Romanian company Aerostar to produce thin aluminium sheet sections.
Stork Aerospace, with 3,182 employees, posted a turnover of E495 million ($585 million) in 2004 out of the total Stork turnover of €1.82 billion.
Source: Flight International
